The one-humped dromedary camel of Arabia may be the source of a mysterious respiratory virus that emerged without warning last year causing kidney failure and severe pneumonia and leading to the death of about half the people known to be infected.
Massive forces bent faults below the Canterbury Plains, jolting a sleeping city awake at 4.35am. The other world - that occupied by animals - got an almighty fright too.
Two stationary yellow-eyed penguins standing sentinel over Sandfly Bay on Otago Peninsula have been confusing penguins, tourists and volunteers alike.
Auckland Zoo's latest arrival was out and about on her legs yesterday but already has keepers on their toes.
A Northland hen is continuing to pop out huge eggs - but it's not because of the weather, season or what she's been eating.
Fat cat Hazel is a pet with a plan. And she needs an owner willing to help her stick to it.
In the foothills of the Himalayas, a war is being waged. Soldiers with M16 assault rifles patrol the grasslands and forests and surveillance drones buzz overhead.
Jude Nickolls was brought to tears again yesterday - this time by the kindness and generosity of strangers.
Three weeks ago Col Sheehan was enjoying a few holes at the Tinwald Golf Course before his pet very likely saved his life.
One of Queenstown's top horsewomen was reduced to tears yesterday after discovering her two horses had their tail hair hacked off.
Four days after a pet dog disappeared, its skinned and mutilated body was dumped on a family's South Auckland lawn.
Hundreds of protesters rallied around New Zealand today opposing a law that allows testing of party pills on animals.
Rallies against a new law allowing legal highs to be tested on animals were being held around the country today. The marches were protesting against the Psychoactive Substances Act, passed this month, which restricts the sale of legal highs but also allows new substances to be tested on animals if necessary.
I woke on Saturday to an alert in my email inbox about my dog, Cheddar.
About 60 "flat cats" came a step closer to domestic bliss at a clinic in Dunedin for the cats of tertiary students.
A dead cow found floating near the Auckland harbour bridge today either fell from a farm bank further up the harbour, or it was swept away during a high tide, the Harbourmaster believes.
The hunt for whoever shot two New Zealand fur seals at a world-renowned colony near Kaikoura has stalled, with police and conservationists desperate for witnesses to come forward.